HAMMOND, La. – The back-to-back Southland Conference Regular Season Champion Southeastern Louisiana University volleyball team worked quickly to punch its ticket to the semifinal round of the 2024 Jersey Mike's Southland Conference Volleyball Championship, sweeping East Texas A&M 3-0 (25-21, 25-11, 25-15) in the quarterfinals Friday night at the University Center.
Southeastern (25-4), the tournament's top seed, scored 39 kills on 102 total attacks while committing 13 errors for a team .255 attack percentage. The Lady Lions had seven service aces in the match and blocked back 11 attacks for points. The Lady Lion defense held the eighth-seeded East Texas A&M (10-19) Lions to a negative hitting percentage in the contest as ETAMU committed 22 errors while getting just 20 kills in the match on 89 total attacks for a -.022 attack percentage. The Lions from Commerce scored on two aces and blocked back three SLU attacks for points in the match.
SLU's leading scorer on the night was
Cicily Hidalgo, the SLC's Player of the Year, who finished with a match-high 12.5 points, scoring 10 kills, which was also the most in the contest, while getting three block assists and a service ace. During the match, Hidalgo became just the second Lady Lion in program history to surpass 1,400 career kills, joining Darci Starr on that exclusive list.
Keira Beverly was the only other double-figure scorer on the night as she racked up seven kills on a .429 attack percentage with four total blocks, one solo, and had an ace of her own.
India Bennett had seven block assists to go with five kills on a .333 attack percentage while
Alexis Logarbo flipped those numbers, getting seven kills on a .385 attack percentage and five block assists on the night.
Lexi Gonzalez led the team in digs, with 20, and service aces, with three.
Gracie Duplechein was the match's assist leader with 21 while
Ashley Richardson had 14 assists on the evening.
The two teams sided each other out over the match's first four sets for a 2-2 score before a Hidalgo kill started the first run of the match as Southeastern scored the next four points with a bad set by ETAMU putting Southeastern up 6-2.
The Lions in blue would go on a run, pulling it back to within a point at 10-9, but then another Hidalgo kill started a 5-0 SLU run with a kill by Beverly putting the Lady Lions up 15-9.
After the media timeout, ETAMU scored six-straight points to tie the score at 15-15, but Southeastern would not allow the other Lions to get in front as another Hidalgo kill ended the East Texas A&M run and started another three-point push by SLU as another Beverly kill made the score 18-15.
ETAMU responded again with a matching 3-0 run to tie the score at 18-18, but a serve error by the Lions from Commerce started a 5-1 SLU run which opened the to gap to four at 23-19 on a kill by Bennett. Four rallies later, an ETAMU serve error missed the court on Southeastern's second set point, giving the Lady Lions the first set by a 25-21 score and a 1-0 lead in the match.
A serve error by SLU gave East Texas A&M the first point of the second set, but a kill by Logarbo started a run that opened a gap that could not be closed as the Lady Lions scored the next eight points to go up 8-1 on a kill by Beverly.
ETAMU would only get as close as five points the rest of the way, at 10-5 and 14-9, but another Logarbo kill was the first of six-straight points and sent Southeastern on a set-ending 10-2 run. Beverly and Hidalgo blocked back an East Texas A&M attack on the first set point to bring the second set to a close with a 25-11 score, putting Southeastern up 2-0 in the match.
With the third set tied 1-1 after two rallies, an East Texas A&M attack error started a run of three-straight Lady Lion points with a kill by Beverly putting SLU up 4-1.
The two teams sided each other out over the next seven rallies, making the score 7-5, before another ETAMU attack error kicked off the Southeastern run which opened the gap for good as the Lady Lions scored seven-straight points to blow open a 14-5 lead after Logarbo and Bennett blocked back an attack.
SLU's lead in the third set hit a peak of 11 points, the first time coming at 17-6 on a kill by Logarbo. The final time Southeastern had an 11-point lead in the set was at 22-11 after another ETAMU attack error. Seven rallies later,
Cicily Hidalgo picked up a kill on SLU's second match point of the night, securing the 3-0 win with a 25-15 score in the third set.
The top-seeded Lady Lions advance to Saturday's semifinal round where they will meet up with the fifth-seeded Incarnate Word Cardinals, who defeated the tournament's four-seed, Texas-Rio Grande Valley, in four sets on Friday. Opening serve of Saturday's semifinal round match against the Cardinals (17-10) is set for 5 p.m. All matches of the 2024 Southland Conference Volleyball Championship will be televised on ESPN+ with live stats for all matches also available through the Southland Conference on StatBroadcast.
DIGGIN' IT CLUB / S CLUB
Fans interested in becoming active supporters of the Southeastern volleyball program are encouraged to join the Diggin' It Club. Lion volleyball alums are encouraged to join the exclusive S Club, which is restricted to Southeastern athletic letter winners.
All membership fees and donations to both the Diggin' It Club and S Club (volleyball) are available for the exclusive use of the Southeastern volleyball program. Membership information is available by contacting the Lion Athletics Association at
laa@southeastern.edu or (985) 549-5091 or visiting
www.LionUp.com.
SOCIAL MEDIA
For more information on Lady Lions Volleyball, follow @LionUpVB or @JWhiteSLU on Twitter, @LionUpVB on Instagram, like /SLUathletics on Facebook and subscribe to the SLUathletics YouTube channel.
